We're Newbies !

[ZooOnWheels]

Hello fellow RVers, my wife and I are ate 60 years old and are planning on buying a very well maintained class A diesel pusher in five years,....yes five long....years. But we always....research (mainly me) everything !

Here's a bit of our story so you can imagine how much we want to travel in a motor home. At age two I had a bad fall, went into a coma for 13 days, had to learn to crawl and walk again. I have memory problems, concentrating is difficult, so learning has been tough. The worst is I have headache, migraines and what I call ''electrical zaps'' 24/7 and range all day from levels between 1-10. I never let the pain win. I was a good gymnast and played football.

I'm a diabetic so sports was hard. I graduated from autobody tech school and started building muscle cars, hot rods and race cars. We built and raced dirt wing 360 dirt sprint cars for 14 years, but it all made my pain do bad, that my wife and family stop before it killed me, so I retired.

I had such a bad infection that went septic, traveling to every organ. I pasted away at a local hospital, staying for 9 days, went back 4 days later then the flew me via Med-Flight Jet to the Mayo Clinic in Mn. Two days later I passed away again. Stayed for 32 days.

In 2006 I had a engine builder put together a Ford aluminum 427 side oiler engine for our 427 Cobra, then ended up taking us for over 12k. He loaded up his shop and left. The county attorney tried to find him, but no luck. He took at least 4 others. In 2016 I had two light heart attacks. 2016 I was driving my truck at 35 mph and was rear ended at 60 mph. Broke two disks in my neck, tore all the tissues at the base of my skull, had 21 nerves removed then had a operation to install a ''Spinal Cord Stimulator'' inserted from my lower back, up through my spine cord, to my neck and left shoulder. It tries to stop the pain from going to my brain. Poor Patty has bad Crohn's disease. Thank goodness we have decent insurance as our meds would cost over 8k per month. Anyway...

I sold my Pro-Street Camaro that I built at age 19 and Patty sold he nice 1968 Mustang to buy our house, then when we paid off the house on my 40th birthday, we'd build a new car, a 1966 Ford 427 Shelby Cobra replica in 2001. We the went on a cruise to Alaska, and it was fantastic ! I could write a encyclopedia on the trip. I bought a Sony hard drive camcorder and recorded several hours and many pics. It was such a great time we wanted to buy a diesel-powered coach as Patty had six weeks of vacation, but two older couples told us we'd be going to fast for reasons, one being the Alaska highway is terrible for any car let alone a RV.

We decided to wait until Patty retired, which will now be in five years from today. After 35 years, Patty lost her job as the big world wide company wants to ''down size'' the business. She has one year of severance pay and insurance and a nice amount of 401-K. Our financial planner said we've done a wonderful job in saving's. So, she's looking for another job. We make under 50k a year but with what we have and we might,..sell the 427 Cobra to add to the motor home..BUT, we would love to trailer it and zoom around the mountains ! We live in flat Ne. so it would be great fun !

Our plan is that Patty gets another job, good pay and insurance and save all we can. In five years at age 65, she'll retire, have s hell of a party, buy a coach, pack up the pets and go see America !

We have a lot,..of questions and a ton of research to do. We'd rather start now rather than say, ah, we just need like a few months to start, no, problem. lil,...no, not for us !

So learn us people ! 😎

[ZooOnWheels]

Oh, the reason of our username is we love animals as family, so no matter how many we have, they'll be with us on our travels. Currently we have three dogs, four cats and my love,...''Shelby'', our sulphur-crested cockatoo !
I'm sure she'll be sitting on the dash ! lol...

She's my mechanic helper, hands my my tools.

[TonyDi]

Nice to have you here with us.

Gee you’ve had an exciting life to say the least.

Make yourself at home, ask questions and let us know what we can do to help you. You’ll find our members eager to help you.

[ZooOnWheels]

Thanks Tony, we will !

[Homeby5]

Hey Zoo man, Just do it.
I have had a stroke and 21 surgeries. Still have nerve damage to legs. Anyway, we just bought a used travel trailer and new truck and we are currently on out Virginia trip.. from Key Largo to Alaska. That's right, 3600 miles down on a 14000 mile planned trip.
Go live life!

[IndyJim]

Welcome from Indiana!

The only thing I can tell you for certain is that 5 years from a lot of things will have changed.

-IndyJim

[ZooOnWheels]

Thank you. Do you have Indy tickets for me Indy Jim ? lol

I agree that's why I keep up on changes and technologies, especially electronics.

[MSHappyCampers]

Hi ! Welcome to IRV2! We're sure glad you joined us!

Have fun and keep her between the ditches!

Good luck, happy trails, and God bless!

[ChristoRV]

Wow - what a life you are having... nice tude too, you made a good batch of lemonade from some lemons... more folks need to have that spirit!

My only 2¢ on this is; Like the other fellow Hoosier pointed out, many things can and will change in the next 5 years.

There are top notch RV builders - Newmar, Tiffin, Winnebago to name a few... also I would recommend buying a well cared for and maintained used one - get more bang for your buck. Stay away from anything built from 2019-2022/23 IMO - due to parts and labor issues... seems many built during this time went with some shortcuts.

Go to RV shows - floor plans will be one of the top 5 things you will want to decide on and like... stay away from too many bells and whistles....

Some prefer to buy from private individuals rather than dealers - everyone's mileage on this varies. Unless you luck out and find a competent and trusty dealer near your home base.

Good luck - and aside from the fun you will have once you get one, this is also a fun part as well... I love the research part.

[momdoc]

Welcome to the forum. That is a hell of a saga. I so hope the retirement plan works for you two.

You are joining a good group of friends here with good information to share. Read the various threads here and ask questions as they come up or add information if you can.

Good luck and enjoy the adventure!

[ZooOnWheels]

Thanks momdoc.

The Lord gave me a high spirit of life to deal with the pain, and there are so many others that have pain issues as well, and even worse. Case in point, all the people in Ukraine. I can't even imagine what their going through. But as we've seen, their tough people ! God bless them all.

I'll make a note to stay away from those years. It's so sad that the quality was lowered. Not something that we need in such a expensive purchase !

I'll keep up with the latest news, updates, changes and trends in the next five years. I'm sure the next five years will go by fast, so I'd rather get started now, then wait too long and rush to purchase.

Like you, I enjoy researching as long as it boggles my mind, so as long as I go slowly I'm good to go.

[ZooOnWheels]

Ok, so on with the first listed in my research.

So I don't get confused, let's try to keep this to one subject at a time.
(won't be easy...lol)

Like I mentioned we're planning on a budget of $150,000.

#1- What are the Class A Pushers to stay away from why with details please ?

[ZooOnWheels]

Originally Posted by Homeby5

Hey Zoo man, Just do it.
I have had a stroke and 21 surgeries. Still have nerve damage to legs. Anyway, we just bought a used travel trailer and new truck and we are currently on out Virginia trip.. from Key Largo to Alaska. That's right, 3600 miles down on a 14000 mile planned trip.
Go live life!

Just in short,...what the hell are you, Superman ?
You'll LOVE Alaska ! I can talk for days about our trip.

[IndyJim]

Originally Posted by ZooOnWheels

Thank you. Do you have Indy tickets for me Indy Jim ? lol

I agree that's why I keep up on changes and technologies, especially electronics.

I do have tickets for you. They are from 2017.

-IndyJim